In a refrigeration cycle of a general air conditioner for a vehicle, an actual cooling action is generated by an evaporator in which a liquid-phase heat exchange medium is vaporized by absorbing an amount of heat corresponding to heat of vaporization from the surrounding. A gas-phase heat exchange medium introduced from the evaporator into a compressor is compressed at a high temperature and a high pressure in the compressor, heat of liquefaction is discharged to the surrounding in a process in which the compressed gas-phase heat exchange medium is liquefied while passing through a condenser, the liquefied heat exchange medium passes through an expansion valve to become a low-temperature and low-pressure wet saturated steam state, and is then introduced again into the evaporator to be vaporized, thereby forming a cycle.
That is, a high-temperature and high-pressure gas-phase refrigerant is introduced into the condenser, is condensed in a liquid state while discharging heat of liquefaction in the condenser by heat exchange, and is then discharged from the condenser, and the condenser may be divided into an air cooling condenser using air as a heat exchange medium cooling the refrigerant and a water cooling condenser using a liquid as the heat exchange medium.
The air cooling condenser, which is a component performing heat exchange with air introduced through an opening part of a front surface of the vehicle, is generally fixed to the front of the vehicle in which a bumper beam is formed for the purpose of smooth heat exchange with the air.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, a water cooling condenser 10 may use a plate type heat exchanger in which a plurality of plates 20 are stacked.
The water cooling condenser is configured to include a first flow part 21 and a second flow part 22 in which a first heat exchange medium and a second heat exchange medium flow, respectively, by stacking a plurality of plates 20, a first inlet pipe 31 and a first outlet pipe 32 into and from which the first heat exchange medium is introduced and discharged, a second inlet pipe 41 and a second outlet pipe 42 into and from which the second heat exchange medium is introduced and discharged, a gas-liquid separator 50 separating the first heat exchange medium into a gas-phase heat exchange medium and a liquid-phase heat exchange medium, a first connecting pipe 51 connecting a condensing region of the first flow part 21 and the gas-liquid separator 50 to each other, and a second connecting pipe 52 connecting the gas-liquid separator and an excessive cooling region of the first flow part 21 to each other.
In the water cooling condenser 10, the first heat exchange medium introduced through the first inlet pipe 31 flows to the condensing region of the first flow part 21, moves to the gas-liquid separator 50 through the first connecting pipe 51, again flows to the excessive cooling region of the first flow part 21 through the second connecting pipe 52, and is then discharged through the first outlet pipe 32.
In this case, the second heat exchange medium is introduced through the second inlet pipe 41, flows to the second flow part 22 formed alternately with the first flow part 21, and cools the first heat exchange medium.
Meanwhile, as the condenser configuring refrigeration cycle of the air conditioner for a vehicle, both of the air cooling condenser and the water cooling condenser may be used in order to improve heat exchange efficiency.
As illustrated in FIG. 2, in the case in which both of the water cooling condenser 11 and the air cooling condenser 12 are used, in the refrigeration cycle for a vehicle, a pipe layout becomes complicated in order to connect different types of heat exchangers to each other, and pipes should be additionally configured and assembled, and thus, an increase in a production cost is caused.
In addition, when the pipe layout becomes long and complicated, a refrigerant acts to be disadvantageous to a pressure drop while being moved, such that performance and efficiency of an air conditioner system for a vehicle cannot but be decreased.
As an attempt to improve this problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-180485 (published on Aug. 7, 2008 and entitled “Heat Exchanger”) has disclosed a system in which a coolant cooled from a sub-radiator is transferred to a water cooling condenser and is heat-exchanged with a high-temperature and high-pressure refrigerant discharged from a compressor, and the refrigerant is transferred again to an air cooling condenser. In this system, the sub-radiator, the water cooling condenser, and the air cooling condenser are configured integrally with each other. However, there are problems that a tank of the sub-radiator and headers of the water cooling and air cooling condensers are different from each other, and an assembling property between the sub-radiator and the water cooling and air cooling condensers or weldability of a bonding part between the sub-radiator and the water cooling and air cooling condensers is low, and there is a limitation in improving all of the problems as described above.